James Gosling grades Oracle’s handling of Sun’s technology

Gosling says Oracle has done ‘surprisingly well’ with Java

With the four-year anniversary of Oracle’s Sun Microsystems acquisition looming, we reached out to Java founder James Gosling to rate how Oracle has done in shepherding Sun technology.
Gosling gives Oracle eyebrow-raising grades, lauding Oracle’s handling of Java,despite his past acrimony toward Oracle over Java, and giving Oracle a flat-out failing grade on what has become of Solaris OS.
Gosling was a longtime Sun technologist and, briefly, a CTO at Oracle right after Oracle bought Sun in January 2010. He is considered the father of Java, which was founded at Sun in 1995. Asked how different technologies have faired under Oracle’s stewardship, Gosling graded Oracle and offered his own perspectives:

These days, Gosling is chief software architect at Liquid Robotics, which develops ocean-based robotics. After leaving Oracle in 2010, Gosling stopped presenting at the JavaOne technical conference, but he reappeared onstage at the event in October 2012.